Mauricio Giraldo - Fulbright NEXUS Scholar

Home Country: Colombia

Grant Dates: 2012/2013

While studying Mechanical Engineering at the Pontificia Bolivariana University in Medellín Colombia, Dr. Mauricio Giraldo participated in several projects both industry and research related; projects that ranged from the evaluation of boiler combustion to the design and building of a small wind turbine for a local public park. After graduating at the top of his class, he began his Ph.D. studies in Colombia financed by Colciencias, focused on the numerical evaluation of complex flow phenomena, which gave him the understanding of the tools and phenomena that would be helpful further along his academic career. During his Ph.D. he was able to secure not only a short stay at the University of Nottingham (UK) to work on the numerical models, but also received a Marie Curie Fellowship to conduct further research of fluid behavior at the sub micron scale at the University of Leeds, also in the UK. After receiving his Magna Cum Laude Doctoral degree, he has was hired at the Pontificia Bolivariana University in Medellín, where he has dedicated himself to teaching both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, to consulting with local companies on energy related matters, and mainly as a researcher in the fields of numerical methods, energy, fluid mechanics and renewable energy systems. Currently he is the Mechanical Engineering Head of Department, in charge of the academic and administrative aspects.

Even though the academic formation received in his Ph.D. was more basic than applied, his interest in helping attain a more sustainable way of living has lead for instance to the development of a vertical axis wind turbine, currently seeking patent, in which the aerodynamic profiles and working scheme was specifically designed for the wind patterns available in Colombia, or the design of more efficient heat exchanger systems by employing non continuum fluid mechanics in the nanometer to micrometer scale.

While working on the wind turbine, Dr. Giraldo was introduced to the problems associated with the mangroves in the town of Coveñas, Sucre, on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where large areas are being destroyed by the effects of human activity. Seeing that his knowledge of fluid mechanics could be used to help in the preservation of this great natural resource, and having found that Prof. Arvind Raman, from the School of Engineering at Purdue University, had similar interest in this field, together they drafted a proposal to help understand the connection between changes in soil salinity due to anthropogenic or natural factor, and the capacity of the tree to transport water, a requisite for its viability. This understanding of hydraulic conductivity in roots of the mangroves could cast light on which environmental effects are more likely to affect the viability of mangrove swamps thus leading to more effective land-use and environmental policy, aiding in the preservation of one of the richest and most important ecosystems of the coastal regions of tropical countries.